No. 499.
Mr. Baker to Mr. Evarts.

No. 140.]

Sir: Referring to my Nos. 97, 126, and 137, I inclose herewith the opening part of a communication from General Guzman, as the same appears in the evening number of the Gaceta Oficial of the 2d instant, with a translation thereof.

The communication is addressed to the five chiefs of the five military districts into which the country was divided by a decree of General Guzman. (See my dispatch No. 119 and its inclosures.)

[Page 1044]

In the part of the communication which I inclose, he says:

Yesterday I separated myself from the presidency, using the permission which the congress of plenipotentiaries accorded me, to go to Europe in quest of my family; to initiate an adjustment which may reduce our exterior debt to a third part; to negotiate treaties by which our natural products may be free from duties of importation in those markets, in exchange for the reciprocity which we will accord to their natural products in ours, and to formalize the purchase of Curacoa, &c.

In connection with General Guzman’s indication of purpose to purchase Curacoa, I refer to my No. 50, inclosing a map and description of that island.

I have, &c.,

JEHU BAKER.